Upgrade Blake Crouch Quotes

What do you call a heart that is simultaneously full and breaking? Maybe there's no word for it, but for some reason, it makes me think of rain falling through sunlight.

We don’t have an intelligence problem. We have a compassion problem. That, more than any other single factor, is what’s driving us toward extinction.

I suspect that, if we all had perfect memory, we would all grieve the older versions of we used to be the way we grieve departed friends.

Maybe compassion and empathy are just squishy emotions. Illusions created by our mirror neurons. But does it really matter where they come from? They make us human. They might be what make us worth saving.

No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream.

I had extraordinary dreams, and an ordinary mind.

You can’t kill humanity to save humanity. Human beings are not a means to an end.

We lived in a veritable surveillance state, engaged with screens more than with our loved ones, and the algorithms knew us better than we knew ourselves.

Higher intelligence doesn't make you less greedy or self-centered or evil. It doesn't necessarily make you a good person.

Doesn’t feel like intelligence itself is the answer. It terrifies me to think of a world where we have all the same problems, a billion less friends, and everyone thinks they’re smart enough to be infallible.

What do you call a heart that is simultaneously full and breaking? Maybe there’s no word for it, but for some reason, it makes me think of rain falling through sunlight.

You’re working off a flawed assumption. Higher intelligence doesn’t make you less greedy or self-centered or evil. It doesn’t necessarily make you a good person.

Being smart doesn't make people infallible, it just makes them more dangerous.

All the existential threats to our existence live under the umbrella of climate change.

The greatest threat to our species lies within us.

I suspect that, if we all had perfect memory, we would all grieve the older versions of who we used to be the way we grieve departed friends.

Never before had I seen Homo sapiens so clearly—a species, at its most fundamental level, of storytellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold, random, sometime brutal existence, with fabricated meaning

It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally unable to realize.

It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally unable to realize. No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream.

Human nature will be the last part of nature to surrender to man.- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Hunger, disease, war, warming- these threats loom over us like building storm clouds. But ninety-nine percent of humanity reads about our crumbling world in the morning headlines, then ignores it and gets on with their day.

If there’s a solution, it has to lie in reaching us from our ambivalence. Our apathy.

But I didn’t live in a world where any of my dreams were possible anymore.

So you’re saying people are too stupid?” Basri asked. “Not just that,” Miriam said. “It’s denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done.

It’s denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done. Every danger we face links ultimately back to this failing.

If I lose the ability to hurt, I also lose my grasp on joy—those brief moments of contentment that make consciousness worth the voyage.

What if you create a bunch of people who are just drastically better at what they already were. Soldiers. Criminals. Politicians. Capitalists.

If I lose the ability to (feel) hurt, I also lose my grasp on joy -- those brief moments of contentment that make consciousness worth the voyage.

There’s no one else on this planet I would rather have ten thousand dinners with.

People with those kinds of ambitions—they aren’t like the rest of us. There’s a relentlessness in them. They think they want peace. They think achievement will bring it to them. It never does.

We were a bunch of primates who had gotten together and, against all odds, built a wondrous civilization. But paradoxically—tragically—our creation’s complexity had now far outstripped our brains’ ability to manage it.

But I didn’t live in a world where any of my dreams were possible anymore. And the hardest truth — the one that had been eating me slowly for most of my adult life — was that even if it was, I didn’t possess a fraction of the raw intelligence of an Anthony Romero or Miriam Ramsay. I had extraordinary dreams and an ordinary mind.

To save humanity, I needed my humanity.

our creation’s complexity had now far outstripped our brains’ ability to manage it.

Put simply: Our situation was fucked, and we weren’t doing enough to un-fuck it.

If nothing changes, we will die off for the stupidest reason imaginable—because we refused, for so many childish reasons, to do the obvious things that would save us.

The absence of sensory gating is a key marker for schizophrenia, and actually contributes to making people go insane. An existence without gating would be torture.

Mostly, I just sit by the kitchen window, watching the sea change.

Feelings are also the core of compassion and empathy. We’re becoming capable of rationalizing anything. Maybe sentiment helps with the checks and balances.

Finally understood that free will did not exist, because I could not choose my desires, only whether to pursue them.

You can stop splitting the atom; you can stop visiting the Moon; you can stop using aerosols; you may even decide not to kill entire populations by the use of a few bombs. But you cannot recall a new form of life. —Erwin Chargaff

Life never really goes the way you want or expect. Usually, even getting exactly what you want turns out not to have been what you really wanted. So, my son, if you ever find a sliver of happiness and peace, just be thankful and live.

Poverty, disease, starvation, and all the hatred those hardships breed, growing worse every decade—as we squeeze the last drops from our planet’s resources. We can’t keep living in denial about what’s happening or hoping that it’s someone else’s problem to solve.

Never before had I seen Homo sapiens so clearly—a species, at its most fundamental level, of storytellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold, random, sometime brutal existence, with fabricated meaning.

Life never really goes the way you want or expect. Usually, even getting exactly what you want turns out not to have been what you really wanted. So, my son, if you ever find a sliver of happiness and peace, just be thankful and live. Don’t reach for more, because a sliver is more than most people ever find.

We walked back to the hotel under a deep navy sky bejeweled with stars. In the center of the plaza a choir was singing. They held quivering candles, and their voices lilted icily into the sky. I didn't see the moment. Not really. I saw the story behind the moment - a tale passed down over two thousand years that told of a child of a superbeing sent to save the world. Never before had I seen Homo Sapiens so clearly - a species, at its most fundamental level, of story tellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold, random, sometimes brutal existence, with fabricated meaning.

My mother had said, “Hunger, disease, war, warming—these threats loom over us like building storm clouds. But ninety-nine percent of humanity reads about our crumbling world in the morning headlines, then ignores it and gets on with their day.” She looked around the table. “You’re all here with me in Shenzhen, trying to do your part to solve crop failure, which might be a step toward solving hunger and famine. Trying to be part of the solution.” She leaned forward, suddenly energized. “If more people were like us, imagine what we could accomplish. New crops to feed the millions going hungry. Stopping pandemics from raging across our world. Ending most disease and all poverty and all war. No more mass extinctions. Clean, renewable, limitless energy. Spreading into the solar system.” Twenty years later, as the hot water beat down on my back, I felt a chill run through me. “So you’re saying people are too stupid?” Basri asked. “Not just that,” Miriam said. “It’s denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done. Every danger we face links ultimately back to this failing.

No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream

Higher intelligence doesn’t make you less greedy or self-centered or evil. It doesn’t necessarily make you a good person.

Right and wrong are constructs born of human sentiment. Nothing but stories we’ve made up and assigned meaning to. They don’t correspond to any objective reality. The only thing real is survival.

Can an intelligent being comprehend the instructions to make itself?

It takes everything in my power not to break down. I had stopped using my emotional Faraday cage months ago. To save humanity, I needed my humanity.

I want to tell them I still love them, and also how that love has been changed and deepened—made infinitely more complex by the intimacy of being able to relive every memory of them in perfect detail. But I have no words. Or none that would be sufficient. And so I settle for dividing my consciousness and decelerating my perception of time to the slowest possible crawl, savoring every elongated second of their touch, their warmth, their smell, their presence.

I had extraordinary dreams and an ordinary mind.

I thought I was a woman in search of peace in a place of my own.

Money held no interest for me beyond the freedom it provided.

Eighteen,” she said. “What?” She coughed blood. “We had eighteen perfect moments.” I thought about it. “Nineteen.” “How do you get nineteen?” “This one. But I’m sorry to have it.

It is a supremely cruel thing to have your mind conjure a desire which it is functionally

It’s denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done. Every danger we face links ultimately back to this failing.” I

The future was here, and it was a fucking mess.

We were planning a weekend trip to the Shenandoah Valley to see the fall colors from the Skyline Drive.

I could read a book with my eyes while simultaneously listening to an audiobook, and comprehend each one to a seventy percent degree of accuracy.

In the late-twentieth century, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist named Robin Dunbar proposed a theory that Homo sapiens can only care about, identify with, and maintain stable relationships with 150 people. This number correlates to the size of the social groups in our evolutionary past. When we were Homo erectus, we lived in small hunter-gatherer groups bonded by sociality. Back then, only caring about our immediate group was advantageous. It helped us defend our tribe. It helped us advance, and survive. But that limitation carried forward. Today, in a given tragedy, we can overlay the faces of our family, friends, and co-workers on only 150 people. Beyond that, compassion fades, but not because we’re evil. Our emotional hardwiring can’t cope with it. We’re living in a global community of ten billion, with brains that can only feel compassion for our immediate clan. Other factors come into play, such as distance. A tragedy across the world is harder to feel compassion for than one in our own neighborhood. People who don’t look like us are more challenging to identify with. And if our species has a problem with apathy, and feeling compassion for the pain of others in real time, how can we expect ourselves to conjure compassion for a tragedy that hasn’t even happened yet? The victims of Homo sapiens’ demise haven’t even been born. What emotional incentive do we have to make the sacrifices that will save future generations, if our brains aren’t capable of caring about them sufficiently?

We were a monstrous, thoughtful, selfish, sensitive, fearful, ambitious, loving, hateful, hopeful species. We contained within us the potential for great evil, but also for great good. And we were capable of so much more than this.

And I was struck, again, as an outside observer, by how much the members of our species needed one another. All these people are out in the cold rain. To Laugh and drink. To talk about nothing. It was almost as if that need for connection and touch was our... their.. lifeblood.

Humans have had 300,000 years on this planet. We lived from the stone-age to the space age We split the atom and sequenced our own DNA and built machines that could think. But for all our progress, ten million people die of hunger every year. We have hyperloops and rampant nativism. Phones more power than the computer that took us to the moon but no more coral reefs. And year after year, nothing changes.

What do you call a heart that is simultaneously full and breaking? Maybe there's no word for it, but for some reason, it makes me think of rain falling through sunlight

In the absence of compassion, selfishness is the most rational response

Usually, even getting exactly what you want turns out not to have been what you really wanted. So, my son, if you ever find a sliver of happiness and peace, just be thankful and live. Don’t reach for more, because a sliver is more than most people ever find.

Under the Gene Protection Act, we can hold you for seventy-two hours just because.” “Fascists.” I shrugged. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

The stakes were the future of our species. Where we were going. What we would become. Kara had started the Gene War.

We have hyperloops and rampant nativism. Phones more powerful than the computers that took us to the moon, but no more coral reefs.

This hurts me deeply; and it makes me happy. What do you call a heart that is simultaneously full and breaking? Maybe there’s no word for it, but for some reason, it makes me think of rain falling through sunlight.

We had gotten so much right. And too much wrong. The future was here, and it was a fucking mess.

Memórias apareciam na minha mente, e não só de todos os livros que já tinha lido. Momentos aleatórios e insignificantes. Eventos cruciais que moldaram a minha vida.

Eu tinha sonhos extraordinários, mas uma mente ordinária.

A vida nunca segue o caminho que queremos ou esperamos. Até quando conseguimos exatamente o que queríamos, depois vemos que não queríamos aquilo de verdade. Então, meu filho, se encontrar um pingo de felicidade e paz, fique grato e viva. Não tente conseguir mais, porque um pingo é o máximo que a maioria das pessoas consegue.

O que estava em jogo era o futuro da nossa espécie. Para onde iríamos. O que nos tornaríamos. Kara tinha dado início à Guerra Genética.

She shrugged. “I know we aren’t close, but you’re my brother. I’d kill an army for you.

Homo sapiens so clearly—a species, at its most fundamental level, of storytellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold, random, sometime brutal existence, with fabricated meaning.

We were a monstrous, thoughtful, selfish, sensitive, fearful, ambitious, loving, hateful, hopeful species. We contained within us the potential for great evil, but also for great good. And we were capable of so much more than this. My sister had been right about one thing: I couldn’t do nothing.

I could not choose my desires, only whether to pursue them.

Three nights later, I had wild dreams—like my brain had been infected by Salvador Dalí on mushrooms.

I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but you can’t put this knowledge back into the box.

If I lose the ability to hurt, I also lose my grasp on joy--those brief moments of contentment that make consciousness worth the voyage.

But my sister was right about one thing—we will die out in the next century if nothing changes. And I think I discovered why our species seems so willing to let this happen. One child dies in a well, the world watches and weeps. But as the number of victims increases, our compassion tends to diminish.

Maybe compassion and empathy are just squishy emotions. Illusions created by our mirror neurons. But does it really matter where they come from? They make us human. They might even be what make us worth saving.

My mother once posited that we are not rational beings. We read about all the looming threats in the paper, we watch it on the news, and then we get on with our day. And, yes, some of that is thanks to our ability to hide from reality with denial, with cognitive dissonance, with magical thinking. But she forgot the most important thing: In the absence of compassion, selfishness is the most rational response of all. Our species’ superpower is not caring. We merely exercised that ability.

palimpsest

Humans are 99.9 percent identical in their haploid DNA/genome sequence of approximately 3.2 billion base pairs. However, while we all have roughly the same genes, there are polymorphisms—small differences in the sequence of these genes—that lead to changes in expression levels, and even alter a gene’s function.

Miriam said. “It’s denial. Selfishness. Magical thinking. We are not rational beings. We seek comfort rather than a clear-eyed stare into reality. We consume and preen and convince ourselves that if we keep our heads in the sand, the monsters will just go away. Simply put, we refuse to help ourselves as a species. We refuse to do what must be done. Every danger we face links ultimately back to this failing.” I finished my shower,

The urge to wall myself off from the ache is acute. But I want to feel it. If I lose the ability to hurt, I also lose my grasp on joy—those brief moments of contentment that make consciousness worth the voyage.

Walla Walla, Washington

Only eight companies in the world built the type of hardware she would need: Atom Computing, Xanadu, IBM, ColdQuanta, Zapata Computing, Azure Quantum, and Strangeworks.

He met me ten feet from the others, moving with a light-footedness and grace that belied his size. The man towered over me—it was as if a boulder had sprouted arms and legs. “Is Feld inside?” I absorbed his reaction in the starlight: surprise. He lifted his left arm and spoke in his native tongue into the end of his sleeve. After thirty seconds, his eyes shifted; he was listening to someone in his earpiece. He responded, “Da, da, da.

A man in a white lab coat appeared in the doorway, and when he saw me, he smiled. Ty Feld was two inches shorter than me, with curly, grizzled black hair, bushy sideburns, and a mustache more befitting a saloon owner. The GPA had kept Feld in its sights for years. We’d never gone after him, even though we knew he lived in the penthouse of Tower of Babel and operated out of a handful of old buildings in the abandoned sprawl of Las Vegas. Officially, we’d never been told why he was off-limits, but we all knew. He was a back-alley contractor for DARPA. He sold them illicit biotech and occasionally coughed up legit intel on bioterrorists and competitors to the GPA. So all things being equal, he was allowed to run his business of exotic synthetic creatures as long as he justified the freedom he was allowed.

(spanghew: to throw violently into the air; especially, to throw (a frog) into the air from the end of a stick).

No one teaches you how to handle the death of a dream. But that wasn’t my fate any longer. My mind was becoming a diamond.

Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in doing so, can imbue a cold, random, sometimes brutal existence, with fabricated meaning.

So I bought some clothes at a thrift store, cleaned myself up,